RULES OF CONDUCT

STAR WARS™: THE OLD REPUBLIC™ RULES OF CONDUCT

Last Update: November 17th, 2011

The Rules of Conduct are guidelines that apply to conduct and behavior on the Star Wars: The Old Republic website, product and service (“Service”). We appreciate you taking the time to review them as their purpose is to ensure that, together, we provide a safe, fair and fun environment for all players.

These guidelines can change at sole discretion as necessary to best benefit the Star Wars: The Old Republic community and cultivate an atmosphere appropriate to the game and its gaming forum. Despite our best efforts to detail the different sections with specific examples, there will always be areas that will be ultimately handled on a per incident basis by the Star Wars Customer Service Team (“SWTOR CS”). Even when not specified, we Electronic Arts and Bioware have the sole right and final judgment of how to interpret and apply these rules and guidelines to any specific circumstance and situation, including proper punishment or exception. All capitalized terms used in these Rules of Conduct that are not defined below are defined in the Star Wars: The Old Republic Terms of Service at http://www.swtor.com/legalnotices/termsofservice (“Terms of Service”), which contains additional rules of conduct. This Star Wars: The Old Republic Rules of Conduct supplements the Terms of Service and they both apply equally to game play. Consequences of violating these Rules of Conduct, including revocation of your Account, are the same as for violations of the Terms of Service. Please see the Terms of Service for more detail.

General Rules and Guidelines

To keep the Service a compliant, fun, fair and safe gaming environment for everyone, you may not engage in any of the following behavior:

Post, transmit, promote, or distribute Content that is illegal or promote or encourage any illegal activity including hacking, cracking or distribution of counterfeit software. (See also “Mod, Hack and Cheat Prohibitions” below).

Harass, threaten, embarrass, or do anything to another player that is unwanted. This includes posting insulting, offensive, or abusive comments about players, repeatedly sending unwanted messages, attacking a player based on race, sexual orientation, religion, heritage, etc. Hate speech is not tolerated. (See also “Harassment Policy” below.)

Create character names or otherwise transmit or facilitate distribution of Content that is harmful, abusive, racially or ethnically offensive, vulgar, sexually explicit, defamatory, infringing, invasive of personal privacy or publicity rights, or objectionable in a reasonable person's view. (Also see “Naming Policy” below.)

“Trolling,” which we define as posts or threads that knowingly lead to overly strong, negative, and emotional responses for mere shock value, is not allowed on the Service. Accounts created with the sole intent to “troll” will be immediately and permanently suspended. Constant personal attacks are also considered trolling. (See also “Forum Guidelines” below.)

Register an alternate account for the purpose of disobeying the rules to avoid punishment of your main account. Alternate accounts created for this purpose will receive permanent bans.

Register an alternate account to post when your main account is banned. These alternate accounts will be permanently suspended and may necessitate other moderation actions.

Impersonate another person (including celebrities), indicate falsely that you are an EA or BioWare employee or a representative of EA or BioWare, or attempt to mislead users by indicating that you represent EA or BioWare or any of EA’s partners or affiliates.

Post messages for any purpose other than personal communication, including without limitation advertising or promotional messaging, chain letters, pyramid schemes, or other commercial activities.

Post or communicate any player’s real-world personal information within the Service or through any Site or any Service bulletin board.

Attempt to get a password, other account information, or other private information from a Member or any other player on the Service. Remember: BioWare we employees will NEVER ask for your password. Do not give your password, reminder words, or billing information out to anyone.

Buy, sell, transfer or auction (or host or facilitate the ability to allow others to buy, sell or auction) , or offer to transfer, sell or auction, or buy or accept any offer to transfer, sell or auction, any game Account or game Content, including (without limitation) game characters, character attributes, items, objects, currency, credits or copyrighted material, or any other intellectual property owned or controlled by the Services, or its our licensors, without first obtaining our express written permission, nor may you encourage or induce any other player to participate in such prohibited transaction(s).

Use or distribute “auto” software programs, “macro” software programs or other “cheat utility” software program or applications.

Improperly use in-game support or complaint buttons or make false reports to Service staff members, including the SWTOR CS.

Modify any part of the Service that the Service does not specifically authorize you to modify.

Attempt to interfere with, hack into or decipher any transmissions to or from the servers running the Service.

Exploit any bug in the Service to gain unfair advantage in the game and/or communicate the existence of any such bug (either directly or through the public posting) to any other user of the Service.

Attempt to play the Service on or through any platform that is not controlled or authorized by EA.

Participate in any online service that provides online features or game play for Star Wars: The Old Republic that is not authorized by EA or any of EA's partners or affiliates.

Do anything that interferes with the ability of other Service users to enjoy playing Star Wars: The Old Republic and using the Service in accordance with its rules, or that materially increases the expense or difficulty of EA in maintaining the Service for the enjoyment of all its users.

You may not give false information or intentionally hide any information when registering for your Star Wars: The Old Republic Account.

You will not upload or transmit in Star Wars: The Old Republic, or on the official Forums or any and all official websites, any copyrighted content that you do not own all rights to, unless you have the express written permission of the author or copyright holder.

Forum accounts are non-transferable. Registered users are responsible for any actions that take place on their accounts or private messaging systems.

Do not repost copyright and/or press material in its entirety from other sources. Quotations from things such as news articles are fine, provided it is cited and (if possible) linked to.

Disrupt the flow of chat with vulgar language, abusiveness, hitting the return key repeatedly or inputting large images so the screen goes by too fast to read, use of excessive shouting [all caps] in an attempt to disturb other users, “spamming” or flooding [posting repetitive text].

Mod, Hack and Cheat Prohibitions

Using mods, hacks and cheats can give players an unfair advantage over others. To help ensure a level and fair playing environment for the community and for everyone, you may not engage in any of the following behavior:

You may not use any of your own software or third-party software to modify the Service content to change game play.

You may not use the intellectual property rights contained in the Game Content owned by EA or its licensors or the Software, or any information accessible through the System, to create or provide any other means through which the System may be accessed and/or the Game may be played by others, as, for example, through server emulators.

You may not take any action that imposes an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our System.

You may not use macros, add-ons or other stored rapid keystrokes, "dupes," "cheats" or other patterns of play that facilitate acquisition of items, currency, objects, character attributes, rank or status at an accelerated rate.

You may not use your or third-party software to rewrite or modify the user interface or otherwise manipulate data in such a way as to use the Service to acquire items, currency, objects, character attributes or beneficial actions not actually acquired or performed in the Service.

You may not engage in any conduct or practice that results in an Account containing items, objects, currency, character attributes, rank, or status that are inappropriate for the level or rank of the character contained in the Account, i.e., "item loading,".

Conduct prohibited shall include, without limitation, arranging, making or accepting in-Game transfers of items to a character without adequate in-Game consideration, thereby augmenting or aggregating items in the transferee character's Account and having the effect of increasing its value for purposes of an out-of-game Account sale.

Harassment Policy

Our goal is to build a strong community that offers a comfortable atmosphere for all of our players. This means seeing that players have the ability to combat antisocial behavior

Harassment consists of misuse and/or abuse of game mechanics and verbal harassment with the intention of distressing and offending other players. Game mechanics allow players to interact with the world and each other. For example, the ability to block a doorway is a game mechanic. Use of game mechanics like these is by no means considered harassment in and of itself. The key to determining whether the mechanic is being misused or abused is to determine "intent." Reported incidents are not considered harassment until it is determined by the SWTOR CS that it was done to intentionally to cause distress or to offend other players.

Harassment is also any behavior that is incessant, inescapable, derogatory and directed specifically at you or your group. Before reporting, a genuine attempt to alleviate the situation should be made by leaving the area or the offending player, or asking them politely to stop. If a sincere attempt has been made to solve the problem and the offending player persists in the behavior, it should be reported.

Behavior that is always considered harassment includes derogatory and/or hateful comments that are sexual, racist, religious, or related to gender or creed.

A judgment of valid harassment can result in penalties placed on the harassing party up to and including immediate account closure, based on the severity of harassment and the player's past account history.

Player versus Player (“PvP”) activities, where available, are not exempt from this policy.

Naming Policy

When creating a character or guild name for Star Wars: The Old Republic, it is encouraged that you select a name that reflects the theme of the game. The guidelines listed below outline the types of names that you can NOT use, and apply to both player or character names, as well as guild names.

You may not use any names that violate the General Rules. This includes the use of names that are hateful, defamatory, racist, ethnically offensive, obscene, vulgar, sexually explicit, or any other language that is offensive in nature.

You may not use names that are harassing or defamatory to other players or employees of EA, BioWare or LucasArts, e.g. EASUX, Timsretarded, and Biowaresux.

You may not use names of any EA, BioWare, or LucasArts employee or service related to Star Wars: The Old Republic.

You may not use names of copyrighted or trademarked characters, materials or products, e.g. Coca-Cola or Dr. Pepper.

You may not use names from popular culture or media, e.g. Lady Gaga or George Lucas.

You may not use names that are religiously or historically significant, e.g. Jesus, Winston Churchill.

You may not use proper names of areas within Star Wars for character names. Guild names, however, MAY use the proper names of specific areas to help promote role-playing and realm pride, e.g. Defenders of Tython or Protectors of Hutta.

You may not use proper names of non-player characters within Star Wars: The Old Republic, e.g. Darth Malgus, Satele Shan, Yoda, Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker.

You may not use names containing titles or ranks within them, e.g. General Supertrooper, Captain Tim, Darth Timmy, Knight Wakey.

You may not use names that refer to drugs or that are drug related.

You may not use names that contain an inappropriate phrase, sentence or any fragment of a sentence or Leet speak, e.g. uberhaxer, xxspeederxx, lolface, rofl, Noobwhacker, TimmyF**k, kock, fuk.

You may not use misspellings or alternative spellings of names that violate any of the above rules, e.g. Hamsolo, Yooda, DorthVader.

You may not use gibberish names when creating character, e.g. ajsdu, rifndsw, qweszs.

If you violate any part of the above Naming Policy you will either be assigned a new name, or given the option of changing the name. In addition to this, your account could incur a penalty up to and including account closure.

Forum Guidelines

The following guidelines will help promote a user-friendly environment for everyone using the Service:

Do not post in all capital letters, use excessive punctuation, etc. to draw attention to your posts.

Using the words EA, Electronic Arts, BioWare, LucasArts or any Developer or SWTOR CS member’s name in a thread topic is frowned on. Please make sure your thread title is relevant to the post subject.

Posting IBL, IBTL, or variants of “In Before The Lock” constitutes spamming.

Discussion of political, sexual, or religious topics is prohibited on the forums.

Posting, linking, quoting, reproducing, or discussing confidential information from the game testing program is prohibited on the forums.

Do not bump posts to the top without adding constructive content to the thread.

Do not hijack topics. Posting comments within a thread which severely disrupts the original conversation is prohibited.

Profanity is not acceptable in communications on the forums or anywhere on the Service.

Petition posts are frowned on. If you have an issue with the game, please discuss it in a civil and informed fashion.

Do not post about locked or deleted threads or other moderation actions.

Posts deemed inappropriate to a particular forum will be moved to a more appropriate forum or even removed completely. Posts that have been removed are not to be re-posted.

If you have a post to report, use the “Flag” button located on the post in question.

Although it looks like there are a lot of procedures and rules in place, most of these are common sense, and are meant as a safeguard to keep these forums active and relevant for the community of a game we all love. Abusing these forums affects everyone who enjoys this game, so we ask for your cooperation and your support in achieving and maintaining this goal. Suggestions to make this an even better place for our community are always welcome! You can PM any of the SWTOR CS members with your input and we will gladly review it for implementation.

Thank you for being part of this community and helping make it a safe, fair and fun environment for all of our players.

The statements and opinions expressed on these websites are solely those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect the views, nor are they endorsed by Bioware, LucasArts, and its licensors do not guarantee the accuracy of, and are in no way responsible for any content on these websites, and the Star Wars: The Old Republic privacy policy does not apply to their information collection practices.